5 Insane things about email marketing

Build your list, create good content, design an amazing email blast and off you go. Right ?Um, not so fast! How do I build a good list without generating a slew of spam complaints?

But first, for two amazing guides, that will kick your marketing up to a new level. It will also demonstrate an incredibly cool solution called “Unbounce”, which is a great tool you can use to grow your email list.

ORGANIC OPT-IN: The best way

Join Mailing List Call to Action: Your website and social media channels should have “Join Mailing List” easily located. Both Constant Contact and Mail Chimp have API’s that allow you to collect emails from all these places and dump directly into your lists. You can even create different lists for the different platforms that you use.

Offer a Content Reward For Email Addresses: Let’s say you really want to learn how to market to doctors. I can run this ad (see below) on social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) or Google.

Example Content

I believe if you want to target doctors, you are going to be really interested in this offer. So, what the heck? You aregoing to give me your email address and wham, bam, I now have your email address and I can market to you.

How do you use this strategy? Identify your client’s pain points and write a short guide solving that pain point. Create a campaign that promotes your guide on Facebook, Instagram, Google, etc. and have the ad link to a page that requires them to enter an email before they get the guide.

“But WAIT, you say, “I don’t have such a page on my website.” CLICK HERE to view a page I built in 15 minutes. Enter your email to see the experience (no spam I promise!)

This page was built using a company called Unbounce. You can build robust landing pages in under an hour. No technology needed!

OK, I know that everyone uses Linked-In for business but, how many of you are on Facebook at night? (OK, some of us are on during the day too.) Why not create a closed Facebook group geared toward your target market? Believe me, your clients are online at night as well, and can be affected by a solution dropping right into their feed. Here is my brand new LEGAL MARKETING GROUP. Once you create a group that has members, you can market to the members. Keep it closed so it’s more exclusive. You can get email addresses from that group by clicking on all the member names.

SCRAPING TOOLS:

A scraping tool (check out MOZENDA) allows you to easily get a CSV download of member directories that you already have access to. (It s not the easiest tool to use but they have amazing support.) Identify your target market, join associations that are targeted toward that market and, as long as they have a directory that is visible, you can quickly scrape their email addresses. For example, if you are a member of a real estate brokers organization (REBNY is one in NY), you already have access to all the members (but it would take an intern 80 hours to get all of the information). You can use scraping software that will grab all the names, titles, company names and email addresses in a matter of about 3 hours. Usually these memberships are about $500/per year. Mozenda is a subscription service and is about $100/month. You get a free trial for 500 names:

CAVEAT: Some platforms (aka Facebook and Linked In) MIGHT prevent you from using these kinds of tools.

PURCHASING LISTS:

Two words: do not. Why not? Because things have changed drastically in the last 5-10 years email list databases. You don’t know how those emails were collected, how many times they have been used, or even if they are valid. In addition, both Constant Contact and Mail Chimp have stated that buying an email list is against their policies they will ban your account if you use them.

EMAIL PROVIDERS:

First of all, have you ever thought about laser focus? After all, how many emails do YOU open that are promotional? Think about it. Is it better to reach 25, 50, or 100 people of which 10% might convert to a new client? Or 1000 people where .025% might convert. I’m just sayin’. Read on…

Testing: So, you have 1000 new names and your hot fingers are itching to press send. NOT SO FAST! Make sure you add your names to your email provider at a rate of 250 or less per day. Test those names slowly because if you get too many “spam” complaints, your provider could shut down you down. They usually give you one warning, but why take a chance?

Content: You can’t just write emails about how awesome your firm or company is. You must have content that people are interested in. And that takes time effort and energy. For example, I wrote this because lots of peope were asking about lists. It took me about 3 hours to write, edit and find pictures. But I hope y’all find it worth it! If you did, let me know! info@immediate.nyc

We Are Immediate is a NY based web design and development company geared to providing affordable digital experiences to firms of all sizes.

Lori Shecter is a member of the NY Legal Marketing Association, American Marketing Association and Women in Tech